Description

Marvel Puzzle Quest borrows the concept of the previous Puzzle Quest games, but with characters from the universe of Marvel comic books, with both heroes and villains. Just like the original game matches are played on a board filled with gems. The player and the opponent take turns to swap a gem's position to create a match of three of more identical gems, both horizontally or vertically. The created room is filled with new gems from the top of the board. Matched gems hurt the opponent and a game is played until one of the sides is defeated.

The player assembles a team of three Marvel characters. Games are played through a story campaign with new missions unlocked gradually, in ranked matches or tournaments against other human players, or by participating in daily events and activities along with the ability to join an alliance of players. The game is free-to-play with two currencies. The main currency is Iso-8 to upgrade characters. Hero points are the premium currency mainly used to unlock powers and characters, but they can also be earned during regular gameplay. Both currencies can be bought in-game or through more expensive packs. Other typical free-to-play elements are waiting times for characters to heal or to be revived, and health packs that can be bought in-game, along with boosters and other items. There is also limited room for characters, so to assemble a large team more room in the roster needs to be bought or unlocked.

The basic gameplay is expanded with various strategic decisions. Each gem match brings the destroyed gems to the player's arsenal, where they are used as a currency to activate certain powers. The player's characters are swapped for each turn and each one does different damage for specific gems. An opponent's team can also consist of three characters and these can be swapped by the player to target a specific one. The special powers launch powerful attacks, clear rows, or introduce attack or defense gems. It is also possible to stun an opponent. All of these are used by the opponent as well and at all times it is possible to review the abilities of each character or to view the gems possessed by the opponent, to prevent them from collecting towards a special power. During certain games the player receives a powerful character in the team to control only for that match. Prior to a match team attacks can be assigned (through special gems) as well as boosts for certain gems.

Each character has a health bar tied to a global level system and specific damage properties. Characters are leveled up by using Iso-8 to unlock additional covers for their powers. Once a power is introduced or activated, the global level can be upgraded with Iso-8 as well. After each match various rewards are provided and it is possible to replay missions. The main campaign is based on the Dark Reign series with static cut-scenes between matches. The game supports cross platform multiplayer games.

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Development

Infinite Interactive, the original Puzzle Quest developer who also owns the rights to the name are not credited in the game, but according to their website they did consultancy work on the game's design.